Ultriva Blog

Ultriva Committed to Helping Manufacturers Move Away from Forecast Driven Business Models

Posted by Narayan Laksham on 12/22/14 12:12 PM

Ultriva support specialist Lori McNeely recently hosted a training webinar highlighting the various ways MRP systems work with Ultriva. The webinar included information about publishing Forecasted Gross Requirements so that suppliers can view the information in the Ultriva portal – eliminating the need to send regular spreadsheets back and forth.  McNeely also discussed how Ultriva can be utilized for the MRP firm orders generated by the ERP system, allowing for time-saving consolidation of supplier demand and fulfillment activities into one common system.  

Forecast errors are costly, whether having too little or too much inventory; the additional time supply chain professionals spend correcting the orders to suppliers has a bottom-line impact as well. Ultriva is committed to helping manufacturers move away from forecasts to a demand-driven manufacturing and supply chain environment. 

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Topics: supply chain, manufacturing, inventory, lean manufacturing

MRP Shortcomings Generate Chronic Shortages in Supply Chain

Posted by Narayan Laksham on 12/15/14 12:09 PM

This past summer Chad Smith, a Supply Chain expert and co-founder of the Demand Driven Institute presented a webinar with Ultriva about consumption-based replenishment.  Smith is the co-author of Orlicky’s Material Requirements Planning, third edition (ISBN 978-07-175563-4) which suggested the result of MRP’s shortcomings and/or poor implementation is that companies have chronic and frequent shortages at various stages of the production, procurement, and fulfillment cycles.

Smith went on to say these chronic and frequent shortages tend to lead to three main effects:

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Topics: supply chain, manufacturing, inventory

Key Questions for Planning and Flexibility

Posted by Narayan Laksham on 12/7/14 9:12 PM

This past summer Chad Smith, a Supply Chain expert and co-founder of the Demand Driven Institute presented a webinar with Ultriva about consumption-based replenishment.  Smith is the co-author of Orlicky’s Material Requirements Planning, third edition (ISBN 978-07-175563-4) who suggested, “A solution must be deployed that allows companies to plan effectively while maintaining or increasing flexibility.  Most global manufacturers, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software companies and manufacturing consultants seem to ignore the obvious path….Instead, the most common approach is to chase symptoms and propose incomplete and even disastrous solutions that either overcomplicate or oversimplify planning, execution, and control systems with less than desirable results.”

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Topics: supply chain, manufacturing, inventory

Manufacturing Operational Strategies and Tactics

Posted by Narayan Laksham on 12/1/14 9:09 AM

This past summer Chad Smith, a Supply Chain expert and co-founder of the Demand Driven Institute presented a webinar with Ultriva about consumption-based replenishment.  Smith is the co-author of Orlicky’s Material Requirements Planning, third edition (ISBN 978-07-175563-4) who suggested, “Many manufacturers and supply chains face a huge dilemma related to their operational strategy and tactics.  To put it bluntly, the world of ‘push and promote’ is dead.  Gone are the days when a company could use the past to predict the future, build products to that forecast, and have any hope that the market would want what they produced.  Companies that continue in this mode will see continual erosion in their market share and bottom-line performance until that company simply goes out of business.  Additionally, rules and tools that were developed under those conditions must be reexamined and rebuilt for the circumstance of today.”

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Topics: supply chain, manufacturing, inventory

Ultriva Named 20 Most Promising Manufacturing Tech Solution Providers by CIO Review Magazine

Posted by Narayan Laksham on 11/24/14 9:35 AM

CIO Review has chosen Ultriva for its 20 Most Promising Manufacturing Technology Solution Providers. The positioning is based on Ultriva’s solutions that help manage the supply chain and improve the inventory velocity of leading industrial manufacturing, healthcare, aerospace and logistics firms.

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Topics: supply chain, manufacturing, Ultriva, lean manufacturing

Much of Industry Has Lost its Way Regarding MRP

Posted by Narayan Laksham on 11/17/14 9:46 AM

Last week I shared the insights of a CEO using Demand Driven Supply Chain methodologies profiled Chad Smith in Demand Driven Performance – Using Smart Metrics (Smith and Smith, McGraw-Hill, 2013). Smith is a co-founder and Partner at the Demand Driven Institute, an organization dedicated to proliferating demand driven methods globally. Smith serves as the Program Director of the International Supply Chain Education Alliance’s Certified Demand Driven Planner (CDDP) Program. Two months ago Chad Smith and I (Ultriva founder, Narayan Laksham) discussed the five components of DDMRP (Demand Driven Materials Resource Planning) at a well-attended webinar.    

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Topics: supply chain, inventory, Ultriva, lean manufacturing

CEO’s Perspective on Demand Driven Supply Chain

Posted by Narayan Laksham on 11/10/14 2:01 PM

Two months ago Chad Smith and I (Ultriva founder, Narayan Laksham) discussed the five components of DDMRP (Demand Driven Materials Resource Planning) at a well-attended webinar.  Wanted to take this blog as an opportunity to dig a little deeper.  Smith is the co-author of Demand Driven Performance – Using Smart Metrics (Smith and Smith, McGraw-Hill, 2013). He is a co-founder and Partner at the Demand Driven Institute, an organization dedicated to proliferating demand driven methods globally.  Smith serves as the Program Director of the International Supply Chain Education Alliance’s Certified Demand Driven Planner (CDDP) Program. 

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Topics: supply chain, inventory, Ultriva, lean manufacturing

Ultriva SCM Technology Featured in CIO Review (Part 2)

Posted by Narayan Laksham on 11/3/14 12:25 PM

Our last blog shared that Ultriva was the cover story in the manufacturing technology special edition issue of CIO Review. This feature article was authored by Raj Kumar and is titled, “Ultriva: Escalating Manufacturing Output Through Lean.”  The author interviewed Narayan Laksham, Ultriva’s founder and CEO. This second part of the story features Ultriva real-world success in the manufacturing space.  Here is part two of the article: 

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Topics: supply chain, kanban, manufacturing, Ultriva, lean manufacturing

Ultriva SCM Technology Featured in CIO Review (Part 1)

Posted by Narayan Laksham on 10/27/14 9:43 AM

Recently, Ultriva, the leader in collaborative supply chain solutions, was the cover story in the current October issue of CIO Review. This issue was the manufacturing technology special edition. The feature article was authored by Raj Kumar and is titled, “Ultriva: Escalating Manufacturing Output Through Lean.”  The author interviewed Narayan Laksham, Ultriva’s founder and CEO. During the course of the interview, Laksham explained how he applied lean principles to the supply chain processes and developed a solution that triumphs over the traditional Material Requirements Planning (MPR) systems and delivers more value.  Here is part one of the article: 

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Topics: supply chain, kanban, manufacturing, Ultriva, lean manufacturing

Supply Chain Pain Points in Recent Voice of Customer Survey

Posted by Narayan Laksham on 10/20/14 11:59 AM

It is no secret that our SCM (supply chain management) software helps supply chain experts solve their pain points. In order to better serve our existing and prospective customers, we wanted to know specifically how Ultriva customers value the technology. This type of thinking is not new for Ultriva, we constantly incorporate customer feedback into our new enhancements and features, mostly recently in version 7.7.  Voice of the customer (VOC) is what drives the people and product at Ultriva. 

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Topics: supply chain, kanban, manufacturing, Ultriva

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